Five-Year Prison Sentence Confirmed for Head of Rouhani's Election Headquarters in Ivank

One day after the arrest of a journalist in Tehran on charges of 'insulting the eighth Imam of Shia Muslims', judicial authorities announced the final confirmation of a five-year prison sentence for the head of Hassan Rouhani's election headquarters in one of the cities of Ilam province on the same charge. Mohammad Razm, head of the Ilam judiciary, told the Mizan news agency on Wednesday, May 5, that the primary court's ruling of five years in prison for an individual accused last year of 'insulting sacred beliefs and disrespecting Imams' has been upheld by the appeals court. According to this judicial official, the appeals court confirmed the three-year suspended sentence and two-year prison sentence from the primary court. On May 8, 1396 (April 27, 2017), during the inauguration ceremony of Hassan Rouhani's election headquarters in the city of Ivank, Ali-Mohammad Mohammadi, an Ilam poet and head of this headquarters, complained in a humorous text about the eighth Imam of Shia Muslims for being only the Imam of 'principlists' and not the Imam of 'reformists'. The text also included indirect criticisms of Ebrahim Raisi, the custodian of the Astan Quds Razavi, regarding the 'use' of the facilities of this foundation in the presidential election. Following this ceremony, Mohammad Naqi Lotfi, the Friday prayer leader of Ilam, declared a day of public mourning in the province and published a letter addressed to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, expressing condolences for the 'insult' to the eighth Imam of Shia Muslims by individuals whom he called 'malicious seditionists and hypocrites of the time'. Subsequently, several Friday prayer leaders and also Nasser Makarem Shirazi, a Shia cleric in Qom, called for punishment of the 'insulters'. The final ruling for Ali-Mohammad Mohammadi was announced one day after Amir Hossein Mir-Asmaeili, a journalist for the economic newspaper 'Jahan San'at', was arrested after posting a tweet on charges of insulting the eighth Imam of Shia Muslims. Amir Hossein Mir-Asmaeili, in a humorous post, complained about Ahmad Alam al-Huda, the Friday prayer leader of Mashhad, opposing the holding of music concerts in Khorasan province. Mr. Mir-Asmaeili apologized and deleted his tweet, stating that he is a Muslim and Shia and did not intend to insult. Ahmad Alam al-Huda, the representative of the Supreme Leader and Friday prayer leader of Mashhad, has long demanded a ban on holding concerts and artistic events in the city of Mashhad with controversial political and cultural stances. Mr. Alam al-Huda supported his son-in-law, Ebrahim Raisi, the principlist candidate, in last year's presidential election and in December 1396 (January 2018) stated about the necessity of the principlists' victory in the city council: 'You can commit adultery, drink alcohol, and engage in all kinds of sin and debauchery, then repent, and God will forgive you, but this sin you are committing, which may put the fate of Islam and Muslims in the hands of others, even if you perform all kinds of worship until the Day of Judgment, you are certainly hell-bound because you have betrayed Islam and Muslims...'